Miracles do happen! November 22, 2009

For whatever reason, I had the urge to go and check Cassandra Clare’s website to see if there were any updates about Clockwork Princess (I think that’s the first one in the new trilogy) or City of Fallen Angels. Of course, there weren’t. Then I decided to go to YouTube and watch Alex’s video about the two truths and a lie about City of Fallen Angels and mull over which of them are true. Then I remembered that there are going to be movies made of the City of Bones, City of Ashes and City of Glass books and I got kind of irritated, but I started watching the videos and realised how perfect Alex Pettyfer would be for Jace if he was a few years younger and I wanted to watch Alex Rider: Operation Stormbreaker again. Alas, I don’t have the DVD, though I should be watching my psych lecture, anyway, so I guess it all works out in the end. Sort of. :p

That was incredibly random. The miracle to which my titles refers is that the Leafs won their game last night! :D It was actually a total fluke, I’m not going to lie, but at this point I’m going to take what I can get. We played Washington and for the longest time it was 1 – 0 for Washington, but then a shot bounced off a Washington defensemen and then rebounded off someone else (Hagman, I think…) and ended up in the net. Somehow, a shot that was originally going incredibly wide ended up in the net. XD I can’t complain, though. Somehow we held out and ended up defeating them in a shootout. (Surprising, considering we only have, like, one good shooter: Kessel. Oh, and Kaberle’s pretty decent as well considering he’s a defense.) The win made my night, though. :) Then I spent the rest of them night with my friends playing Tetris. XD (And eating cake! Mmm. It was delicious.)

I’ve also officially finished midterms! WOO! :D Although the relief is short-lived. I don’t know if this is going to make sense or not, but has anyone been so focused on getting through midterms, for example, that you know what date it is but it doesn’t really sink in? Sort of like you know that you have a bio midterm on November 20th, but the date itself isn’t processed as an actual date, just a landmark of when your exam is. Anyway, I looked at my calendar yesterday and fully realised what November 21st actually means: two weeks left of class. First semester has, yet again, flown by. Finals start in 16 days. My last exam is a month from yesterday. Christmas (for those who celebrate) is in a month and three days! Wooo. I’m so excited to not have any work to do this Christmas/New Year’s break. Usually I’d have some stupid ISU to do or an exam to study for. Not this time! I can laze about, watch TV/movies, read, and go see friends. Also celebrate Christmas/New Year’s, of course. The downside is that we start classes up again on the 4th of January, but the upsides are: a) the Juniors will be playing at the time! and b) we actually get a break next semester instead of being in class for three months straight. And we all know what’s happening after next semester – Infinitus! :)

I’m going to go watch my psych lecture now, because I may or may not be hanging out with a friend tonight. If I’m not, then hopefully I’ll have to watch Three Rivers (if it’s up tonight) and/or read. Wish me luck! :)

Undecided (Though what else is new?) October 29, 2009

I’m writing this in the 10 minutes of downtime that I have between getting to my room (and eating some delicious raisins!) and going to meet my biology group for our project meeting. Urgh. This biology project is a giant pain, mostly because our group has to meet on Wednesdays and Thursdays, instead of having meetings spread out between, say, Mondays and Thursdays, since the majority of us are busy on Tuesdays and one of our group members works (volunteers?) at a hospital back home for the weekends, so he leaves campus Friday night and returns Monday night, and thus he is unavailable for the weekend. (Wow, grammar fail.) This doesn’t bode well for me, though, considering we meet Wednesday night, conclude the meeting around 7PM, and we have to have considerable amounts of research for 5PM the next day. Did I mention that I pretty much have class from 8:30 – 4:30 every other Thursday? :p (Which of course happened to be today. The universe has it out for me, I swear.) Plus I have my weekly kin test on Friday and a psych midterm Friday (I should probably starting referring to that as tomorrow… ugh) so it’s not like I could devote all my time to research. ANYWAYZ.

I’m going to stop complaining and actually (hopefully) write something interesting. Like how I miss the sound of the rain on the roof. Yesterday I was in my room at night, and I heard this sort of rain-esque sound, but I live on the second floor of six in my building – there’s no way I was going to hear any rain from the roof. It also wasn’t raining. I’ve yet to figure out if there was a legitimate reason for the sound I was hearing or if I was just going insane, lol. The latter is, of course, entirely possible. (And wholly probable. XD)

It’s a trivial sort of thing to miss. It’s not like I miss it a lot, it’s just sort of a passing thought. I love the rain; it relaxes me. Having the clouds just spit though is pointless. It should be a reasonable amount of rain so that I can hear it through the roof as I fall asleep at night. :) Or a ridiculous thunderstorm. Those are always awesome, too. Except when they cut the power for a couple days… Yeah, that’s fun. Not.

—

It’s now three and a half hours later. We actually accomplished a fair-ish amount at our bio meeting. We have to have a rough draft ready for Tuesday, so we’re meeting again on Monday night to put everything together since two of our group members are going home for the weekend.

Anywho, I feel compelled to share this link from MuggleNet that I found yesterday when I was search for the release date of the HBP DVD. It seems like WB is actually going to do something right! I was so shocked. The list of the special features on the 2-DVD special set looks fantastic: Wizard World preview, awesome things with the cast – telling about their characters, and the actors going around set to the different departments (I’m actually so excited for Rupert’s bit at the stunt place, Dan’s bit with the movie editors and Evanna’s bit with the costume designer!), Jo’s documentary (haha, my parents are going to be really grateful for that because we can finally take it off the PVR, where it’s been since it first aired on TV XD), aaaaand… OUR FIRST LOOK AT DEAHTLY HALLOWS! *omgspaz* This DVD looks like it’s going to be leagues above any DVD features since Chamber of Secrets, or maybe even Philosopher’s Stone. (Excluding the Day in the Life of a Champion from the GoF features, or whatever it was actually called. That was awesome.) I’m so excited. It’s set to be released on December 8th here in Canada and the US, December 7th in the Uck, and November 18th in Australia? (Can someone send me a copy? Haha.) I think it’s is going to be the first time ever that I haven’t gotten the DVD of a Harry Potter movie the day it comes out. Obviously I have no access to it myself (unless I go all the way to Zellers… And since it’s released at the start of my finals period, forget it), and I’m not going to be home anyway until the 21st or 23rd, apparently, so there’s really no point in me buying my own copy when I’m not going to be able to see it. *lesigh* I’ll have to wait for Christmas and my parents or someone can get it for me as a gift. I might have to insist that they buy it the day it’s released just so we can boost sales the first day and keep up the ridiculous stats of HP DVD sales on the first day. (Yeah, because these stats obviously revolve only around my family and whether or not we get it the first day…)

Hm, I just checked out the trivia page on MN for the HBP movie, and it says that Christian Coulson expressed interest in coming back to play Tom Riddle in HBP, but David Yates thought he was too old. Bugger. Christian Coulson was the perfect Tom Riddle! Charming, handsome, persuasive, silky voice… He was chillingly perfect. I mean, the guy they got for teen Tom Riddle was good, I’m not denying that, but Christian Coulson was perfect. Grrr, David Yates. I’m sure he could have pulled it off. CoS only came out, like, 7 years ago? If they filmed HBP two years ago, then it would have been alright. And there’s makeup. It could have worked… *sigh*

Also, I feel terrible that I’d forgotten about the tragic death of the actor who played Marcus Belby. :(  Next time I watch HBP, I’m definitely having a moment of silence for him. <3

“Tape that! – Towards the end of the film, when Harry is lying on the ground near Hagrid’s Cabin, Snape kicks Harry’s wand away from his hand. Right in the middle of this shot, as he kicks the wand, you can clearly see a square of neon tape where Harry’s wand was placed, so that the actor, Alan Rickman, would know where to kick.” (From HBP Mistakes.) I wasn’t imagining things. :O Well, I sort of still was, because I swear what I saw was beige, and not neon… But there was at least something there, and that makes me feel better about not seeing things, lol.

I should probably get back to studying now, though. I have a psych midterm tomorrow evening and my weekly kin test in the morning, which is on the complex subject of brain anatomy and neurophysiology! It’s so interesting. It’s most definitely my favourite course this semester. It’s been making me rethink my career choice, though… I mean, biochem is interesting and all, but … I dunno. I love kin, and it comes naturally to me. (Not that bio and chem don’t, but they’re really frustrating me at the moment, too.) Topics like nutrition, bodily functions, gross anatomy, and, surprisingly, embryological development, are so interesting. I’d love to take a nutrition course and figure out what does what, why it does that, what deficiencies are caused by and what the symptoms are… There are select third- and fourth-year courses in kinesiology that I can take without being in the program, but I’ve forgotten what they are at the moment. :p I’ll have to look them up again, though, and take a closer look. I also research about switching into kinesiology next semester instead of psych (argh, I’m still undecided on that…) and I’ve figured out that the lab spot and test time that I’d need to fit in my schedule are open. I could reasonably switch out of psych and into kin, no problems. (Except for the four labs that I’d have next semester, which would kill me for sure.)

Bah. I hate not knowing what to do. I suppose I’ll figure it out some time later. I have to go study now. Bye! <3

PS. Oh yeah. Before I go: What the heck would possess Tampa Bay to allow Viktor Hedman to go play in the Juniors? Why can’t they be selfish like the NYIslanders will no doubt be with Tavares, keeping him for their own NHL games? GRR. This does not bode well for Canada, considering he was the top defenseman of the 2009 tournament. (Although maybe it’ll be good for us in the sense that they might block out Russia? Who knows…)

I swear I’m going now.

BYE.

Granger Dang… I mean… October 7, 2009

Alert the media! I’m posting twice in four days and it’s not even BEDA. I’ve been working on chemistry all day, though, and I’m really bored of it at the moment, so I’m going to take a slight break and blog.

In response to Saturday’s blog, I officially have football tickets to the last two home games of the season. One is tomorrow and one is a few weekends from now, so they’re relatively spread out, which is good because then I can still study. (Boo, more midterms coming up. I think I’m going to constantly have assessments of sorts right up until finals. How unfortunate.) Another note about university sports is that I saw some guy carrying a hockey bag and a hockey stick the other day, and it definitely wasn’t a floor hockey stick because it was a really nice stick – a Synergy – and that would not be used for floor hockey. That could cost, like, $200. What league was he playing with, then? I want to know.

Anyway, after I posted on Saturday, I went down to do my laundry, and I brought a book with me. (I’m not saying which one in case anyone decides to spoil it for me, which would be awful. I’m not saying it’d be anyone I know, but spammers are mean.) Anyway, turns out that the guy doing laundry at the same time as me was reading the same book, and we were at the same chapter (seven!). He was also a fan of Harry Potter. How perfect was that? It was crazy. I love doing laundry because you always meet interesting people like that who have things in common with you. Plus, he lives on my floor. Crazy coincidence? Probably. There are only six floors to my building and the book I was reading is pretty popular. XD Ah, well. It was fun while it lasted.

Also, on Saturday night I went to my friend’s place with a couple other friends (there were six of us in total originally) and we just hung out while the guys played video games and my friend Caitlin (the only other girl) and I screwed around on the computer watching Dane Cook for a bit. Then we ordered pizza and sat around watching an episode of The Big Bang Theory before going to get some ice cream and bringing it back (with three more people XD) to the common room to watch two episodes of Firefly. It was actually so much fun, despite how dorky/lame that sounds. We left at, like, 11:30PM and everyone who didn’t live in that building started walking back our respective buildings. My friend lives in the same building as I do, three floors up, and he was outraged that I hadn’t seen his favourite movies, so we went back up to his place and we looked around for a movie he loved that he thought I’d like (even though by the time the movie started it was midnight, meaning it didn’t end until 2… Thankfully it was a weekend), and we settled on Good Will Hunting, which is a movie from the ’90s with Robin Williams and Matt Damon, where Matt Damon is a troubled youth who keeps assaulting people and has charges against him, but he’s this ridiculously intelligent mathmetician (haha, I bet you can all imagine how excited I was to watch this movie when I found that out and coupled it with Matt Damon’s baddass-ery) who meets Robin Williams, a psychiatrist, and it’s about their relationship. It’s such a good movie. I highly recommend it to anyone who hasn’t seen it.

So that was my Saturday night adventure. We all had so much fun that we’re looking to make this a monthly deal now and do it the first Saturday night of every month, so hopefully that keeps up because I’m really excited for it. :)

Lately I’ve been really addicted to the A Very Potter Musical soundtrack. Seriously. It’s all I’ve been listening to for the past few days, along with Lena’s songs that I have on my iPod, including Oh, Shit, Fly and Songs about You. They’re all so great. I need to find her albums.

Sunday was good weather-wise during the day, so I got to go grocery shopping, in case anyone was worried about me, haha. I got my milk, Cheerios, and other miscellaneous items like delicious yoghurt, animal crackers and CUPCAKES. Mmm. <3 They’re so good. I was going to get a tissue box, too, but they don’t sell the ones I use in single boxes – you have to buy packages of six – so I’ll just have to wait until I go home (which is actually only in two days), and in the mean time I’ll use the little travel packs, which means I’ll probably have to replenish those as well because I’ve been using so many… Stupid cold. I’m almost over it, though, which is good. I may not have to infect my little cousins on Saturday when we have Thanksgiving lunch/dinner, lol.

I should go have a shower now before it gets too late and then do more chemistry and/or math. I’ll post again soon, I hope. :)

Moose tracks = SO GOOD. October 3, 2009

I’m going to bring everyone’s memories back to the “What’s the weather like?” thread (or whatever it was called) and discuss the weather, which, incidentally, is ridiculous. For the first few weeks of school it was great – sunny, hot, never raining, never dipping below 25C. Now, for the last week, it has all of a sudden become cold with no warning, not giving anyone time to adjust to the temperature drop, and it’s raining all the time. I love the rain, but this is ridiculous. I’d love to be able to walk to class without an umbrella, or to be able to go grocery shopping. (Which I have to do today… But I don’t know if I can because, of course, it looks like it’s going to rain.) I also have to vaccuum my room, but bringing a vaccuum I’m responsible for from the rental building back to my room in the rain isn’t going to work out so well, even if it is less than 20m between the buildings.

I suppose I do have other things that I could be doing today, like doing some laundry, studying some math/chem, watching two psych lectures, and recording my vlog, but my milk is supposed to expire today, and I’m running really low on Cheerios, so I’d like to be able to replenish them, plzkthnx.

Anyway, enough about that. Apart from the weather woes, uni’s been alright recently. I took my bio midterm last night, so we’ll see how that went. It was only out of 45 marks, so there wasn’t much room for error.

OOH. Interuption in the scheduled programming. I cannot believe I forgot to mention this before. (And when I saw before, I mean waaay before. This story happened the week before uni started, I think, if not before that.) So, I was at my friend’s house one day for a small pool party, and two of our friends were going to be late. By the time they’d gotten there, we’d all finished swimming and had just settled in his basement to watch a movie or two. As a peace offering, they brought ice cream. Moose tracks ice cream. I’d never had moose tracks before, and I didn’t actually know what it was, but John Noe keeps saying it’s his favourite, and I was really curious, because to my knowledge I couldn’t remember seeing moose tracks at ice cream stores. (Though I’d never really been looking because I always fixate on the “boring” ones like chocolate, vanilla or mint oreo. <3) They’d brought a tub and some cups, so we all took a few spoonfuls from the tub and ate ice cream while watching the movie. (We’d ended up watching Love, Actually, which was pretty good.) Let me just say that I now completely understand why moose tracks is John’s favourite ice cream. It. Was. Delicious. Ohmygod. It was like heaven on earth. So much delicious chocolate-y goodness! It was fantastic. And that’s my pointless story of the day. (Be glad you got an actual story. Most of my stories are like this: “Hey, Allison, guess what? I was going to make pasta for lunch today, but I didn’t.” “…And?” “That’s it. That was my story.” “Oh.”)

Now where was I? Ah, yes, the bio midterm. So before we started writing, we were all just chatting and studying together, and I had a nice conversation with these two guys behind me about Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium and what conditions must be met for a population to be in equilibrium.

Thanksgiving is next weekend, so I’m going home for a few days to see the family and stuff. Hopefully I’ll have gotten over my cold by then. I’ve now been sick for almost a week, and usually I don’t get over colds for two weeks, so it might be pushing it, but we’ll see. I’ll try and eat more soup and drink more water to see if it helps any sort of recovery. It’s not too bad, I’m just coughing and blowing my nose a lot, but I do seem to be running out of tissues, lol. Also, I apologise in advance for my vlog, if I make that today, because I’ll probably sound more nasally than I’m sure I already do. (Though I’m becoming increasingly able to breathe through my nose, so that’s an improvement, at least!)

On a completely unrelated topic (kind of), YouTube is now down for maintenance and “will be back up shortly.” Nooo. I wanted to listen to When You Say Nothing At All by Ronan Keating! Grr, YouTube. What an inconvenient time for you to go down for maintenance. A Saturday afternoon? Bollocks. Although this gives me more reason to get out, go have some lunch and start my chores, I suppose. I really should get on those so I can have them all done by tonight, which means I can relax and study tomorrow instead of being cramped for time as usual. Eating here has made me realize how much I love steamed broccoli. It’s mostly just the head, though. I could do without the stem, but the head of steamed broccoli is delicious. Unfortunately, when you ask for vegetable as a side, I don’t thin you can just request the broccoli. *sigh* Ah, well. Maybe the staff will be more obliging if I went during off hours? Hmm, it’s definitely a theory to test. (I’ve been studying too much of the scientific method recently. XD)

OOH, speaking of science! I totally forgot to mention. Considering the last time I posted was the first day of welcome week, I never got around to telling everyone how the faculty day went! IT WAS AWESOME, in case you couldn’t tell. XD The faculty of science called it Naked Science Day, and (mostly) true to their word, most of the reps only had on a (awesomely decorated) lab coat and a bathing suit underneath. They are brave souls, let me tell you. We had so many awesome cheers, too. I remember most of the science cheers, but only one of my residence’s cheers. Haha. I guess that tells you were my loyalties lie. (No one better come quick, though, there aren’t any students out of bed. ;)  ) And one of my reps that day was a huge HP fan and had buttons on her lab coat! It was so cool! I met this guy on Wednesday during my chem lab, too, who is also a huge fan of HP and we had this long conversation about the book, movies, Jo… everything. It was fantastic. The best thing about university labs (so far, anyway) is the fact that you don’t have to take any data home and do a formal lab report. You do everything during class. (Or, in the case of my kin labs, you aren’t even marked on the lab. You just write obversations down in your manual. Granted, you are tested on this material on the weekly tests, so… It’s a trade off, but still. At least you get to go home and review the material instead of handing something in on the spot!)

Also, I have my very own lab coat and goggles now! I’m so excited, lol. I love my lab coat. <3 You’ll see it in the video I need to make, ’cause it hangs proudly in my room. :)

And now I’m seriously going to have a small lunch so I can have dinner at a reasonable time and have time for that to digest before going for late night ice cream with my friends in celebration of surviving our first midterm! WOO! I’ll talk to you guys later. <3

(…PS? I’ve had to take to supporting the football team because my university doesn’t have a hockey team. WTF? Grr. I was hoping they’d have a hockey team I could support considering I probably won’t catch many NHL games – plus my radio gets a lot of static for the radio broadcasts of the game, grr – but no. No hockey team for Lindsay to support here. *sigh* I’ll have to wait for the Christmas holidays to watch the IIHFs… GO CANADA! Yaaay.)

First day of University! September 6, 2009

I really should be asleep. I don’t know why I’m not. I only got around 5 hours of sleep two nights ago, and this morning I was up at 7 because I was so nervous for university. (So not worth it by the way. It’s awesome here.) So awesome, in fact, that I have to document, to the best of my abilities, my first day. I’ll probably forget loads of stuff, though, because I just can’t remember anything I ever do. It’s just too much awesome to be contained in my head, I suppose. Anywayz, on to the good stuff.

So, having a single room really worked out for the best. I have so much space to myself, and I can (even though I shouldn’t) be on the computer when I should be in bed sleeping and preparing for the more awesome to come for the rest of the week. I also have way more storage space than I thought I would. I was worried about bringing too much stuff up, but that turned out to be pointless. I have so much space. I have a giant wardrobe which has two shelves built-in and a bar on top to hang stuff, huge captain’s quarters under my bed, three drawers on my desk, two shelves above my desk, and a dresser that has four drawers to it, not to mention I have my own bathroom, which has a cupboard under the sink as well as a medicine cabinet above. My parents kept telling me to only bring summer and some fall clothes up for cooler nights because I won’t have space for my winter clothes. How wrong they were. I could have brought every stitch of clothing I have at home and more. But enough about my room, since I’ll be vlogging from here later on, I hope. Onto the activities!

So nothing really started for me until the afternoon, since I moved in between 12 and 4. (Unfortunately I missed the carnival because I was scheduled to move in today. :( Ah, well.) I went out to dinner with my friends and one of my friend’s roommates, which was pretty awesome. They all had this delicious pasta that’s currently being stored in my fridge because we didn’t have time to finish dinner and my res was closest to the activities. My fridge kind of smells like their pasta now. :p I’m not sure if that was because my fridge wasn’t completely cooled when we came to put their food in or because the sauce has a strong smell. Anyway. We ended up just outside the football field, and we gathered with the people from our separate residences, and we all ran into the football field when we were called. We found out later that the way we ran into the stadium spelled out “2013″ from above (apparently we’re getting emailed a video of this later) which is the year we graduate. Cool, eh? :) Then we did a whole bunch of activities on the field, including gathering with people based on the month you were born, or whatever other criteria they came up with. We hopped on one foot and found people hopping on the same foot, put a pinky or thumb in the air and had to find another person with the same appendage out, etc. We did that thing where you’re sitting on the floor with linked arms trying to stand up, and then we linked arms, standing back to back, and tried to dance. It was hilarious. We had a huge highfive circle. People would call out things like, “I love sports!” and if you did then you’d run into the centre of the circle and get high fives from people. It was so funny. XD

After that I went back to my res for a floor meeting, where we played the ice breaker game of saying your name, faculty, something interesting, your least favourite chore and why it was your least favourite. Then after that we had to go around the group again and say “I hate sex because…” and then you’d use the reason you gave for why your least favourite chore was awful. It was SO funny. One guy had said that his least favourite chore was taking out the trash because the plastic on the bags always breaks, one girl said she hated taking out the trash because she had an unpleasant experience with a racoon… You can imagine how hilarious those were. XD I said my least favourite chore was vaccuuming because a lot of my house is carpeted, plus we have a finished basement, and our vaccuum is huge so lugging it around everywhere was a hassle. So when my turn came around I had to say, “I hate sex because my whole house is carpeted.” Needless to say it was greatly amusing, haha.

We then took a journey to some place on campus – it was dark by this time and I wasn’t really paying attention where we were walking – and we learned about the other activities that are taking place this week, which was fun, and we learned some res cheers. Then we all trooped back to our res (which was on the other side of campus than the place we had that acitivities meeting in) and I began blogging. Well, not right away. First, I made a lunch date with a friend because she called me during the activities on the football field but obviously I couldn’t take the call. I have to go to some drama presentation tomorrow and then hopefully I can have lunch with her and her friends. I also want to go to the football game… It’s the first time ever I’ve wanted to go to a school sporting event. XD My university plays the university that a lot of my friends are also currently attending, so it’ll be fun. I just have to convince at least one friend to come with me. It’s weird – usually they’re the ones telling me to come to school events, but now it’s the other way around! It’s crazy.

Hmmm. Fun facts? One of my community advisors is a huge Leafs fan, too. We had fun booing the Sens and Habs fans, haha. One of the Welcome Week reps made a HP joke. HUGE points. I saw a small teddy bear where we had dinner today and it had “Alex” printed on it. I don’t know if I ever mentioned this, but the body pillow cover I got has things like “huge a tree,” “think green,” and “I <3 trees” on it, which totally reminds me of the Whomping Willows. <3 YAY.

And I’m really going to go to bed now. This is the longest blog I’ve ever written that wasn’t a ridiculous review of Half-Blood Prince. XD I need some sleep, unfortunately. I’m getting up in 8 hours for more awesome stuff. I’ll hopefully blog again soon (and make my TDH video). I’ll talk to you guys later! <3

Packing is a hassle. September 3, 2009

I had the weirdest dream last night… I was in some sort of gym for my high school graduation, and my exercise science teacher was giving some sort of speech about him waiting outside the White House for a job in a two-door sedan? My grade 8 teacher was also there, and this girl in my class won a Nobel Prize. I was really upset because I thought I’d win, but it’s weird because it was for physics and I hate physics. Then two of my friends came in late and handed out mini granola bars.

And that was my dream. XD It was completely bizarre, but I had to share before I forgot it.

I don’t know why, but I’ve been having really random dreams lately. Usually I don’t remember my dreams. There was one I had recently about Voldemort (who took on the appearance and mannerisms of Voldemort from A Very Potter Musical – if you haven’t seen that yet, go watch it now) and he was asking me about sticky tack vs. tape for some evil plan. There was another one, but I’ve completely forgotten it by now.

—

Seven hours later, I’m back at this blog post. I’ve actually accomplished something today, other than sitting around watching episodes of How I Met Your Mother. (Which, by the way, isn’t as good as The Big Bang Theory. That show rocks. Go nerds!) I went out with my dad and he bought me a new headset, because my mum gave mine to my brother, and he’s filthy and has been using it for a while, so… I couldn’t exactly take mine back. I also packed a basket-full of clothes for school and taught my father how to use Skype. However, since he needed help making calls, now he has my username… Ah, well. There’s no chance we’ll be on Skype at the same time, anyway. Well, maybe… Whatever. My mother thinks I should only pack summer/fall clothes and then a pair or two of jeans and a few sweaters, and then come back around October or whatever to bring home my shorts and tshirts and bring back my winter sweaters and more jeans. It’s probably just an excuse to get me home. :p

Mmm, failing headphones. I’ve gotten back into my bad habit of falling asleep listening to PotterCast or MuggleCast, which means my headphones are in my ears as I fall asleep, so they get slept on… Not so good for the headphones. Luckily I have a replacement upstairs, and I’m looking to get another iPod because, as you all know, DeformityPod (nicknamed by my friend, lol) is pausing more often and the blackness has creeped over to occupy more space. I swear it’s a moving entity. It’s now between one half and two thirds of the screen. I’ll be quite sad to get rid of my iPod – I’ve had it for three years and we have so many memories together. <3 There was this one time that my friend and I were painting our Latin project and he got black paint on the clickwheel. It’s not there anymore – I washed part of it off and I guess time passed and the clickwheel shed a skin? XD – but I remember it.

—

It’s been two hours since I last typed something here. :p I got distracted reminiscing about my iPod, watching this YouTube video about ruins and aliens, and eating dinner. Then I went upstairs to pack and accomplished a ridiculous packing feat. I am the MAN. (Only after Neville, of course.) I fit six pairs of shoes, two shoeboxes full of books, replacement paper (lined and, soon, printer paper), a headset, extension cord, power bar, wall outlets, and a basket with a milk jug, over-the-door hooks, and a soap container into one box. I also figured out to put one of my posters in with my pillow, and then I shoved all of my hangers in with my comforter, which conveniently came in this nice, zip-up bag. Thank the person who made containers. <3 You are a lifesaver.

As I look at the pile of crap I’ve accumulated, I wonder if I’m overpacking. I can’t really tell for two reasons: One is that I’ve never moved anywhere before, so I haven’t had this experience, and another is that I have no one to compare this to. The university has put me in a single room with a washroom, so I have to bring up everything for myself. None of my other friends have the same type of room, so I can’t compare. I suppose I’ll find out on Sunday when I start to unpack, and if I have an abundance of stuff (Katherines! Haha), then my parents can bring some stuff back home with them. I guess I’ll update you guys after I’m all moved in. :)

In other news, I’m finally registered for Infinitus 2010, the Harry Potter conference in Florida! BOO YEAH! I’m so ridiculously excited. I’m talking about it with Jacinthe right now, which is making me even more excited. I can’t wait to see you again! <3 And playing Quidditch is going to be awesome. I’m going to have to remember not to be so competitive, though. :p It’s going to be so much fun. I am so incredibly excited.

I’ve been writing this blog for 12 hours now, and I’m running out of topics that aren’t boring (though I’m pretty sure I failed that by talking about university and packing) so I’m just going to leave you guys with those quote I found on a website my friend sent me. The next time I update I’ll be living in residence! Ahh!

Enjoy the quote. :)

“I always knew looking back on the tears would make me laugh, but I never knew looking back on the laughs would make me cry.”

I fail at reading. Maybe I’m secretly illiterate. August 9, 2009

It’s times like this that I wish my life was more exciting. At the moment, my life consists of waiting and lists. Waiting for residence, waiting for a new chapter in this awesome fic I’m reading (which, by the way, you should check out – it’s awesome!), waiting for the release of my school schedule (coming on Tuesday – wish me luck!), waiting for Friday to hang out with a friend; lists of things I have to bring to uni, things I have to get, things I already have… Ahh. Too many lists, too much waiting. Waiting and lists makes for a boring existence.

The thing about waiting, also, is that since I don’t know where I’m living, I don’t know what kind of space I’m going to have, so I can’t really buy some bigger things (like a potential book case or storage unit) until I find out. I’m in suspense because I don’t know if I’ll be able to have beloved books at school with me! Although I was talking to someone recently, and they had a good strategy – bring mostly the books that I haven’t read yet, because if I bring too many of my favourites, I’ll never get around to reading my other books. Obviously I can bring some of my favourites – HP and The Mortal Instruments mainly – but I should bring other books because otherwise they’ll never get read. I’ve been looking forward to reading some of those, too. I recently bought Twenties Girl by Sophie Kinsella, and I also got The Alchemyst and The Magician, both by Michael Scott and about Nicholas Flamel. Three cheers for wizard stories! Apparently The Sorceress is the third book of that series, and it’ll be six books long when it’s done. I have to start reading that, then…

On top of those, I have numerous books in my basement that I know I’ve not finished reading – a Jodi Picoult book I was half-way through, The Uglies and The Subtle Knife are ones I know I’ve started and not finished, and then I’ve got some that I haven’t even started yet. I’m also really embarassed to admit that I haven’t even finished Harry, A History.  My friends gave me The Science Behind Harry Potter for Christmas, and I haven’t even started that yet, though it seems so interesting, especially to a huge science/math geek like me! I fail so hard. I am seriously backlogged and need to clear this up, yet I keep re-reading City of Bones instead. Shame on me. I went into my issues with that last blog, though, so I’ll just leave it as that.

Last post I mentioned that I saw Ocean’s 11, and I’ve really been wanting to see Ocean’s 12 and Ocean’s 13. I don’t know if my parents will consent to going out to rent them, though, since they’d also have to see Ocean’s 11, and I don’t know if they’re 2-day or 1-week rentals. If we can only have them for two days, then I doubt they’ll say yes, because it’s unreasonable to expect them to watch three movies in two days. Ocean’s 13 was released on DVD on November 13th, 2007, though, so I’m hoping it’ll be a weekly rental by now. Two years is enough, yeah? Now I just have to drag one of my parents out.

…

It’s much later now, and neither of my parents took to the idea of going out for the Ocean’s movies. Good thinking, I suppose, considering it’s thunderstorming now and the power has already gone out twice. We’d (or, rather, they’d) decided to watch Burn After Reading, though I said it had received really poor reviews and we had other movies we could watch, like Firewall, which we haven’t even opened, but nooo. Oh, well. Maybe now that the movie network isn’t running, they’ll take to Firewall, which seems a lot more interesting and hardcore than Burn After Reading. Or maybe we’ll be forced to watch the lacrosse championships.

Zay also updated She Said What? which made me very happy. :) Although it was a short chapter, we readers have been promised lots of LJ developements over the next three chapters, which are all about the Christmas hols. Yay! <3

On that happy note, I think I’ll end it before I have the chance to rant about something. :p Talk to you all later. :)

I have a problem. Or two. August 1, 2009

You should all be forewarned that this blog post is probably going to be boring, seeing as I’m incredibly bored at the moment and have been for some time.

Um… Ok, so you know how I mentioned two posts ago that I was trying to restrain myself from watching Merlin online? Well, that failed miserably. I’ve already seen every episode twice (some of them I’ve even seen three times), yet it’s only episode nine (of thirteen) that airs tomorrow night on NBC. I’ve also seen a ridiculous amount of fanvids for all of my ships, canon (for the legends) or not – Merlin/Morgana, Merlin/Gwen, Arthur/Morgana and Arthur/Gwen. Aaand I’ve accumulated a scary amount of icons (plus three wallpapers) in a span of two hours.

Yes. I have a problem.

This video in particular has caught my attention. It’s so beautiful in both the video itself and the song. <3 In fact, I love it so much so I bought “You” by Fisher off iTunes and I Google searched for the sheet music, which I found and consequently learned in 10 minutes. I seriously cannot stop playing this song. It’s so beautiful! My favourite part of that video is the part that accompanies the following lyric: Your smiles, well, they make my day / you don’t know it yet but you’re everything.

I should probably add here that I’m not particularly well-versed in Arthurian legend, and I do not care to be, so please do not post spoilers in the comments. I’ve already spoiled myself on what I’m sure is a huge plotline regarding Morgana, although the writers are apparently not following the legends that closely (and after all, there are many variations of the legends…) so I’m not exactly sure if it’ll come to play or not. Even so, please no spoilers. Thanks. :)

Another one of my problems is The Mortal Instruments trilogy, because instead of reading one of the many books I have in my possession but have yet to read, I started reading City of Bones again last night. Why?! My theory is that I was way too bored to start a new book since I didn’t know if I’d like it, so I just went to CoB ’cause it’s guaranteed awesome. Or maybe I’m just really, really obsessed. Either/or.

In completely unrelated news, have I mentioned I’m bored out of my skull? Also, yesterday I saw Ocean’s 11 for the first time, which was actually really awesome. It was the remake with George Clooney, Brad Pitt and Matt Damon, though, not the original. I really want to see the sequels now, though it’s going to be ridiculously difficult to get them from my library because they’re always checked out. *sigh* I also want to see 11 again because I’d taped it off TV, so I had to fast-forward through the commercials, which was not only irritating but also means that they cut out stuff from the movie. I’ll have to get on that soon.

I’m also currently waiting on my email notification for my residence. Everyone else I know (except for one of my friends) has already gotten their notice, but I haven’t yet. I’ve been reduced to checking my email at least five times a day. The other day I finally changed the email my uni notifications go to so that I get the notifications at my MSN email. Now I don’t have to check multiple email addresses, but it’s still driving me crazy. I should get notice by Wednesday, though, because Wednesday is the new deadline to cancel residence and receive a partial refund. So hopefully I’ll get notice soon. Fingers crossed!

Now I’ve been called on to start dinner, but I’m too bored/tired… Ugh. I have to, though. So I’ll catch you guys later.

SPOILERS FOR HBP! July 15, 2009

Yeah. I was going to post yesterday about how excited I was, but I never finished the post. :p And right now, I’m dying to discuss this with someone, so venting my feelings and opinions on this blog is the next best option. If you haven’t gotten this from the title, PLEASE DON’T READ AHEAD IF YOU HAVE NOT YET SEEN THE MOVIE AND DON’T WANT TO BE SPOILED! This is going to be very long, so… Settle in for a HUGE post, lol.

So, these thoughts are probably scattered, because I got home last night at 3:15 AM, and because I forgot things easily, I made a HUGE list in which I categorized every important detail (and some insignificant ones) into my “likes,” “dislikes,” and “random thoughts I had during the film.” So, here we go!

Likes

–They had the relationships absolutely spot on, in my opinion. Lavender was appropriately obnoxious with Ron, he was as dim-witted about Hermione as always, but I loved the emotions that Emma’s finally portrayed with respect to Ron. The tension there (on her part, and lack thereof on his :p) was perfect. I loved, loved, loved the scene between Harry and Hermione in that random room/staircase/whatever it was, where she was asking him, “How does it feel when you see Ginny with Dean? Oh, I know. I see the way you look at her.” And then later, after she Oppugno!‘d Ron and started crying on Harry’s shoulder, he said, “Like this.” That was so perfect. I really loved how after all this time, it really seems like Harry is supporting Hermione, instead of vice versa. There had always been so much drama in Harry’s life that he was always about him, and now it’s finally about him helping someone else the way we know he can. <3 So perfect. And so definitely a friendship and not repressed sexual feelings. Excellent job, Dan and Emma. :) I also really loved the Harry/Ginny scenes. Bonnie is acting so much more like book!Ginny now, and it’s so excellent. <3 The tension and hesitant flirtation between the two was spot on. I loved the scene in the Burrow where they’re eating the little cake things, and then Ron comes and sits in between the two and starts eating. XD Typical big brother!Ron. Loved it.

–LUNA. Ohmygod, she was perfect, as always. Evanna Lynch is just too damn cute. <3 And they kept in her lion hat! YES. So adorable, and so Luna. <3 She’s so wonderful. I loved the scene where Harry takes her to Slughorn’s party. She’s so precious!

–I felt like Tom’s (and Dan’s, for that matter) acting was so much better in this film, that I could actually focus on the character’s and not how unncessarily exaggerated the acting was. For this very reason the Sectumsempra scene was fantastic. So much anger and hate bottled up between the two that was finally unleashed in an alarming way. Very well done. And then the way Snape came in (how did he know about that, though? Lucky he was just passing, I guess…) and looked at Harry and knew. Straight from the book. :)

–Alan Rickman = badass extraordinaire. Even though in the book they ran from the castle at the end, I loved the way he strut so confidently out the doors, his cloak billowing behind him. He’s such a BA. And his scene with Bella and Cissy at the beginning of the movie? SPOT ON. He was so smooth and calm and collected and just so SNAPE. Wonderful. I’m so glad they cast Alan Rickman.

–The tribute to Dumbledore’s death at the end of the movie with the wands pointed towards the sky was so beautiful. I don’t remember that being in the book, but I also haven’t read the book in ages, so I could be horribly mistaken and it could be in there somewhere, but it was a very nice touch nonetheless, considering they cut out his funeral scene.

–Steve Kloves finally decided to keep Jo’s lines! YES. It’s about time, Steven. I’m so glad they kept RAB’s note verbatim. That was so important. I was also waiting for the, “We’re with you, whatever happens,” line from Hermione at the end, but it didn’t come. :( I can’t complain, though, because they did keep a lot of other things exactly as they were, like Dumbledore’s speech to Harry about him following any orders he might give Harry, like to leave Dumbledore alone if he said to. They even got the astonished silence on Harry’s part, and then Dumbledore saying, “Your word, Harry.” Perfect.

–It wasn’t anything near how it happened in the book, but I thought the Felix scenes were really hilarious. Dan acted like he was so high. XD I think one of my favourite lines in that entire movie was the, “Harry?” “Sir?!” exchange between Professor Slughorn and Harry in the greenhouses. XD Dan’s expression and delivery were just priceless.

–I loved the Inferi. They were actually done much better than they appeared in the trailers, it seems. I definitely jumped when the Inferi reached out to get Harry, even though I knew it was coming. It was just so well done and the music during that scene was fantastic.

–They left in Fawkes leaving! They didn’t totally explain that he was leaving because Dumbledore was dead and that he wasn’t coming back, but I guess it was either a nod to the book readers (in which case, good effort, film makers!) or they expected us to gather that on our own. I like to believe it was the former, but it was probably the latter. :p Either way, I’m really glad that was kept it. It was such a nice touch. I thought they might show Fawkes bursting into flames and not being reborn or something stupid in Dumbledore’s office instead when Harry was in there at the end, but I’m glad they kept it like it’s supposed to happen.

–They had very little stupid humour in this film, which was so appreciated. By stupid humour, I reference scenes like in GoF, where Harry, Ron and Hermione are in the Great Hall on their study period or whatever, and they’re discussing dates for the ball, and Harry and Ron get shoved in the back of the head by Snape. That was so stupid and unncessary, and I’m glad they left out anything to that effect in this film.

–Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes was totally brilliant. Fred and George are awesome!

–They explained a lot of things that they included fairly well, like finally explaining what the diary was, explaining about the horcruxes, and even keeping in the explanation about Dumbledore’s hand, and why it was black. (Sort of.)

–Fenrir looks just as gross and capable of devouring small children as Jo made him out to be. Well done to that actor.

–This probably doesn’t make logical sense, but I loved the effect they did on Katie’s hair when he was up in the air as the results of the cursed necklace. It made it seem more surreal to me that what was happening to her wasn’t a result of her surroundings – like it was sort of voodoo magic or whatever, which makes it seem hokey when it’s written down like that, but I dunno. Making her body respond to things that aren’t happening around her made it seem more spooky and believable that it was dark magic.

Dislikes

–Whatever ridiculous jumping movement that Bella was doing after she set Hagrid’s hut on fire. It reminded me of that weird creature at the end of that skiing game on the computer that tried to eat you. Did anyone else play that game? The other where you had to ski down the hill and avoid the trees and stuff, and there were rainbow-coloured jumped you could go off of, and when you got to the bottom you had to avoid that crazy jumping creature. That’s who/what Bella reminded me of. :p Unncessary jumping motion.

–The delivery of, “Severus, please,” was just awful on Michael Gambon’s part. Dumbledore was supposed to be so weak that he could barely stand without the aid of a railing or something, yet he said it like he was totally confident and practically not hurt at all. SO not how it was supposed to happen. Also, I don’t know if this is because we know the outcome of DH already and what that line was really supposed to mean, but it seemed to me like Michael Gambon made it totally obvious what Dumbledore meant. There was no ambiguity in that no, no wondering, “Omg, is Dumbledore pleading for his life?! He wouldn’t do that! What does that line REALLY mean?” Also, somewhat along the same lines, in the cave scene, Dumbledore never got his water. Harry never splashed it all over his face like he did in the book, giving him the strength to cast the huge fire that let them escape from the island. (Or ifHharry did, then I’m horribly mistaken, and all of that about the caves is forgiven.)  They also didn’t explain how they got back, because as far as we know, Harry can’t Apparate by himself, but I guess if Dumbledore magically had the strength/sheer will do conjure that fire, he had the strength to Apparate them both back to Hogwarts. Also, the explanation of how they Apparated inside Hogwarts was stupid. It would have taken the same amount of time to say, “Well, Harry, being Headmaster, I stripped down the wards surrounding this tower,” or whatever, instead of, “Being me, I have special priviledges,” or whatever stupid explanation he offered that didn’t make sense. Whatever. Moving on.

–The explanation of Snape as the HBP totally came out of nowhere. It definitely seemed as if they’d forgotten to explain it somewhere else in the movie, and they were filming the final scene, and the filmmakers thought, “Oh, shit, we haven’t explained this. Hey, Alan Rickman, add another line in here, as you’re taunting Harry… Yeah? Cool.” It’s not like the movie/book was called Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince or anything. Pfft. It could have definitely had a better explanation. Kind of seemed like they put it in there to avoid another Marauders fiasco, like in PoA where they put in something and didn’t explain it.

–The added Burrow scene seemed to have no conclusion. We were left with the image of the Burrow burning, but I still have questions. Are the Weasleys able to rebuild their home? Was it a magical fire, causing them not to be able to rebuild? What happened?! Are we supposed to just assume that the Weasleys were able to fix their home, or are we supposed to wait for DH to see what happened? (And get no explanation, I’m sure, confirming my former idea that we’re just supposed to assume everything is okay.)

–Maggie Smith, Robbie Coltrane and Alan Rickman needed way more screen time. :(

–The slow-mo of Dumbledore falling was just stupid.

–There was no nearly enough Neville. He had, what, one line? Unacceptable. He’s supposed to go from one line in HBP to being a complete BAMF and destroying Nagini in DH? And they had better keep that in, by the way. If they cut that out, I will never forgive the film makers.

–I really wanted Christian Coulson back as teen!Riddle, even though I knew he wasn’t going to be. He was such a good Riddle, though. Handsome, charming, slick… You knew there was something wrong with him, but you couldn’t help be drawn to him at the same time. He was so perfect.

–Cormac was kind of a sleezeball. He was a pervy creeper, but I guess that’s how he’s supposed to be in the book. (Or just annoying, I can’t remember.) I guess this should have gone under the ‘likes,’ then, since he did a good job at portraying his character. :p

–No words of wisdom from Snape when he was leaving at the end. No, “Close your mind to the Dark Lord, Potter!” Although, was it just me, or did it seem like Snape was kicking something to Harry at the end, there? It kind of looked like there was something beige in the grass next to Harry, like a piece of parchment or something, but they didn’t show anything of it in the final scenes, and I’m sure Harry would have mentioned it if Snape gave him something, so I’m inclined to think that I just imagined it, but then at the same time I’m disappointed that Snape didn’t say anything to Harry. I guess it’s too much to ask that Alan Rickman say that line, and the audience remember the Occlumency classes from the previous movie, eh?

I’ll save my random thoughts for the chat on the weekend, since most of them are just nonsense things that made me laugh (not because of lines in the movie, but things that happened that made me think of, for example, John Noe and his convinction that Harry sucks at magic, so, “How the hell is he going to destroy all the horcri?!”). Anyway, this was already way too long after the ‘likes’ category, so I’m just going to say that I liked it a lot better than I thought I would, which I’m really pleased about. I know you probably couldn’t gather that from my lists, because I think my ‘dislikes’ list was the longer of the two, lol, but the things I disliked were much more minor in comparison to the things they finally did right in the movie. :) This could also be because I haven’t read the book in ages, so I couldn’t criticize the movie properly, but even so, it worked out for the better! Anyway, I’m done now. Leave your comments about what you liked/disliked/thought overall!

I don’t have a title for this. July 11, 2009

Wow. It has really been too long. So many things have happened since I last blogged. First of all: It’s now July. Happy belated birthday, Canada! You’re officially 142 years old. Congratulations on making it 142 years. <3 Keep staying awesome! Second, I’m now a high school graduate! =O Yeah. The last time I blogged was before my grad ceremony, which really means it was too long ago, since this is now old news.

Actually, it’s probably in your best interests that I haven’t blogged until now, because if I had blogged last week, all I would have done was complain about how I reeked of chlorine. I went swimming the Thursday before last, and I swear to you I smelled like chlorine for at least a week afterwards. Why, you may ask? Well, a) my friend uses an obscene amount of chlorine in her pool, evidently, and b) I got home from her place at midnight, so there was no way I was showering before I went to bed (that was also my night to pick courses for uni, so even if I’d wanted to/wouldn’t have woken anyone up, I couldn’t shower anyway). Alas, I had to sleep in my chlorine-soaked hair. I showered at 6:30AM the next day, but the chlorine had already set in. Ah, well – as long as I don’t smell like chlorine anymore, it’s all good.

Hmm, what else has happened since? I’ve had three movie days, two swimming sessions, two barbeques, a wedding… It’s strange – I’ve been so busy, which is totally uncharacteristic of me. There was also a point during which I had hamburgers for 5 out of the 10 dinners I ate. It was pretty ridiculous. It’s been pretty fun, though, and now I’m just sitting at home being bored, where “being bored” = trying to restrain myself from watching all of the Merlin episodes on YouTube in quick succession. It’s such a good show. <3 Has anyone else seen it? It’s about the adventures of Merlin (obviously, lol) and Prince Arthur of Camelot. It originally aired on the BBC, so all of the episodes are currently on YouTube, even though it’s only at episode 6 on TV here. Also, on the FAQ page of Merlin’s website, it says it’s been picked up for a second season by BBC1! Wooo! :) I don’t know how fast the episodes will be on YouTube, or if it’ll air here the same time as in the UK (which I doubt), but I can’t wait for season two, even if I have three episodes left of season one to watch – which won’t last me long, haha. Unfortunately, season two doesn’t start until the autumn. :( 

Ooh, something that will make Marzieh happy is that I bought my hooker boots! :) Most of you already know this since I posted pictures on the forums, but Marzieh has been absent because of her exams. I miss you, Marzieh! :( But I’m sure you’re acing your exams, so it’s ok. <3 On an equally exciting note, Half Blood Prince is finally coming out next week! I’m really excited for it, even though I’ll probably come out of the theatre disappointed again. :p What else is new. That’s alright, though. I want to re-read HBP before the movie, but I don’t know if I’m actually going to finish it. I have to read 607 pages in four days. Well, two and a half, really, because I’m going out today and tomorrow for a while. I suppose we’ll see come Tuesday night if I’ve finished it or not, eh? Lol. Midnight releases FTW. Is anyone else going to a midnight premiere? Is anyone else dressing up? If so, as who?

Anywayz, I’m off to Walmart now, so I’ll have to catch you guys later! <3